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was nothing, and dispersed to their inquiries. By six they

returned, their zeal a little damped, without news. Widgery came
back with Dangle. Phipps was the last to return. "You're quite

sure," said Widgery, that there isn't any flaw in that inference
of yours?"

"Quite," said Dangle, rather shortly.
"Of course," said Widgery, "their starting from Midhurst on the

Chichester road doesn't absolutely bind them not to change their
minds."

"My dear fellow!--It does. Really it does. You must allow me to
have enough intelligence to think of cross-roads. Really you

must. There aren't any cross-roads to tempt them. Would they turn
aside here? No. Would they turn there? Many more things are

inevitable than you fancy."
"We shall see at once," said Widgery, at the window. "Here comes

Phipps. For my own part--"
"Phipps!" said Mrs. Milton. "Is he hurrying? Does he look--" She

rose in her eagerness, biting her trembling lip, and went towards
the window.

"No news," said Phipps, entering.
"Ah!" said Widgery.

"None?" said Dangle.
"Well," said Phipps. "One fellow had got hold of a queer story of

a man in bicycling clothes, who was asking the same question
about this time yesterday."

"What question?" said Mrs. Milton, in the shadow of the window.
She spoke in a low voice, almost a whisper.

"Why--Have you seen a young lady in a grey bicycling costume?"
Dangle caught at his lower lip. "What's that?" he said.

"Yesterday! A man asking after her then! What can THAT mean?"
"Heaven knows," said Phipps, sitting down wearily. "You'd better

infer."
"What kind of man?" said Dangle.

"How should I know?--in bicycling costume, the fellow said."
"But what height?--What complexion?"

"Didn't ask," said Phipps. "DIDN'T ASK! Nonsense," said Dangle.
"Ask him yourself," said Phipps. "He's an ostler chap in the

White Hart,--short, thick-set fellow, with a red face and a
crusty manner. Leaning up against the stable door. Smells of

whiskey. Go and ask him."
"Of course," said Dangle, taking his straw hat from the shade

over the stuffed bird on the chiffonier and turning towards the
door. "I might have known."

Phipps' mouth opened and shut.
"You're tired, I'm sure, Mr. Phipps," said the lady, soothingly.

"Let me ring for some tea for you." It suddenly occurred to
Phipps that he had lapsed a little from his chivalry. "I was a

little annoyed at the way he rushed me to do all this business,"
he said. "But I'd do a hundred times as much if it would bring

you any nearer to her." Pause. "I WOULD like a little tea."
"I don't want to raise any false hopes," said Widgery. "But I do

NOT believe they even came to Chichester. Dangle's a very clever
fellow, of course, but sometimes these Inferences of his--"

"Tchak!" said Phipps, suddenly.
"What is it?" said Mrs. Milton.

"Something I've forgotten. I went right out from here, went to
every other hotel in the place, and never thought--But never

mind. I'll ask when the waiter comes."
"You don't mean--" A tap, and the door opened. "Tea, m'm? yes,

m'm," said the waiter.
"One minute," said Phipps. "Was a lady in grey, a cycling lady--"

"Stopped here yesterday? Yessir. Stopped the night. With her
brother, sir--a young gent."

"Brother!" said Mrs. Milton, in a low tone. "Thank God!"
The waiter glanced at her and understood everything. "A young

gent, sir," he said, "very free with his money. Give the name of
Beaumont." He proceeded to some rambling particulars, and was

cross-examined by Widgery on the plans of the young couple.
"Havant! Where's Havant?" said Phipps. "I seem to remember it

somewhere."
"Was the man tall?" said Mrs. Milton, intently, "distinguished

looking? with a long, flaxen moustache? and spoke with a drawl?"
"Well," said the waiter, and thought. "His moustache, m'm, was

scarcely long--scrubby more, and young looking."
"About thirty-five, he was?"

"No, m'm. More like five and twenty. Not that."
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Milton, speaking in a curious, hollow voice,

fumbling for her salts, and showing the finest self-control. "It
must have been her YOUNGER brother--must have been."

"That will do, thank you," said Widgery, officiously, feeling
that she would be easier under this new surprise if the man were

dismissed. The waiter turned to go, and almost collided with
Dangle, who was entering the room, panting excitedly and with a

pocket handkerchief held to his right eye. "Hullo!" said dangle.
"What's up?"

"What's up with YOU?" said Phipps.
"Nothing--an altercation merely with that drunken ostler of

yours. He thought it was a plot to annoy him--that the Young Lady
in Grey was mythical. Judged from your manner. I've got a piece

of raw meat to keep over it. You have some news, I see?"
"Did the man hit you?" asked Widgery.

Mrs. Milton rose and approached Dangle. "Cannot I do anything?"
Dangle was heroic. "Only tell me your news," he said, round the

corner of the handkerchief.
"It was in this way," said Phipps, and explained rather

sheepishly. While he was doing so, with a running fire of
commentary from Widgery, the waiter brought in a tray of tea. "A

time table," said Dangle, promptly, "for Havant." Mrs. Milton
poured two cups, and Phipps and Dangle partook in passover form.

They caught the train by a hair's breadth. So to Havant and
inquiries.

Dangle was puffed up to find that his guess of Havant was right.
In view of the fact that beyond Havant the Southampton road has a

steep hill continuously on the right-hand side, and the sea on
the left, he hit upon a magnificentscheme for heading the young

folks off. He and Mrs. Milton would go to Fareham, Widgery and
Phipps should alight one each at the intermediate stations of

Cosham and Porchester, and come on by the next train if they had
no news. If they did not come on, a wire to the Fareham post

office was to explain why. It was Napoleonic, and more than
consoled Dangle for the open derision of the Havant street boys

at the handkerchief which still protected his damaged eye.
Moreover, the scheme answered to perfection. The fugitives

escaped by a hair's breadth. They were outside the Golden Anchor
at Fareham, and preparing to mount, as Mrs. Milton and Dangle

came round the corner from the station. "It's her!" said Mrs.
Milton, and would have screamed. "Hist!" said Dangle, gripping

the lady's arm, removing his handkerchief in his excitement, and
leaving the piece of meat over his eye, an extraordinary

appearance which seemed unexpectedly to calm her. "Be cool!" said
Dangle, glaring under the meat. "They must not see us. They will

get away else. Were there flys at the station?" The young couple
mounted and vanished round the corner of the Winchester road. Had

it not been for the publicity of the business, Mrs. Milton would
have fainted. "SAVE HER!" she said.

"Ah! A conveyance," said Dangle. "One minute."
He left her in a most pathetic attitude, with her hand pressed to

her heart, and rushed into the Golden Anchor. Dog cart in ten
minutes. Emerged. The meat had gone now, and one saw the cooling

puffiness over his eye. "I will conduct you back to the station,"
said Dangle; "hurry back here, and pursue them. You will meet

Widgery and Phipps and tell them I am in pursuit."
She was whirled back to the railway station and left there, on a

hard, blistered, wooden seat in the sun. She felt tired and
dreadfully ruffled and agitated and dusty. Dangle was, no doubt,

most energetic and devoted ; but for a kindly, helpful manner
commend her to Douglas Widgery.

Meanwhile Dangle, his face golden in the evening sun, was driving
(as well as he could) a large, black horse harnessed into a thing

called a gig, northwestward towards Winchester. Dangle, barring
his swollen eye, was a refined-looking little man, and be wore a

deerstalker cap and was dressed in dark grey. His neck was long
and slender. Perhaps you know what gigs are, --huge, big, wooden

things and very high and the horse, too, was huge and big and
high, with knobby legs, a long face, a hard mouth, and a whacking

trick of pacing. Smack, smack, smack, smack it went along the
road, and hard by the church it shied vigorously at a hooded

perambulator.
The history of the Rescue Expedition now becomes confused. It

appears that Widgery was extremelyindignant to find Mrs. Milton
left about upon the Fareham platform. The day had irritated him

somehow, though he had started with the noblest intentions, and
he seemed glad to find an outlet for justifiable indignation.

"He's such a spasmodic creature," said Widgery. "Rushing off! And
I suppose we're to wait here until he comes back! It's likely.

He's so egotistical, is Dangle. Always wants to mismanage
everything himself."

"He means to help me," said Mrs. Milton, a little reproachfully,
touching his arm. Widgery was hardly in the mood to be mollified

all at once. "He need not prevent ME," he said, and stopped.
"It's no good talking, you know, and you are tired."

"I can go on," she said brightly, "if only we find her." " While
I was cooling my heels in Cosham I bought a county map." He

produced and opened it. "Here, you see, is the road out of
Fareham." He proceeded with the calm deliberation of a business

man to develop a proposal of taking train forthwith to
Winchester. "They MUST be going to Winchester," he explained. It

was inevitable. To-morrow Sunday, Winchester a cathedral town,
road going nowhere else of the slightest importance,

"But Mr. Dangle?"
"He will simply go on until he has to pass something, and then he

will break his neck. I have seen Dangle drive before. It's
scarcely likely a dog-cart, especially a hired dog-cart, will

overtake bicycles in the cool of the evening. Rely upon me, Mrs.
Milton--"

"I am in your hands," she said, with pathetic littleness, looking
up at him, and for the moment he forgot the exasperation of the

day.
Phipps, during this conversation, had stood in a somewhat

depressed attitude, leaning on his stick, feeling his collar, and
looking from one speaker to the other. The idea of leaving Dangle

behind seemed to him an excellent one. "We might leave a message
at the place where he got the dog-cart," he suggested, when he

saw their eyes meeting. There was a cheerful alacrity about all
three at the proposal.

But they never got beyond Botley. For even as their train ran
into the station, a mighty rumbling was heard, there was a

shouting overhead, the guard stood astonished on the platform,
and Phipps, thrusting his head out of the window, cried, "There

he goes!" and sprang out of the carriage. Mrs. Milton, following
in alarm, just saw it. From Widgery it was hidden. Botley station

lies in a cutting, overhead was the roadway, and across the lemon
yellows and flushed pinks of the sunset, there whirled a great

black mass, a horse like a long-nosed chess knight, the upper
works of a gig, and Dangle in transit from front to back. A

monstrous shadow aped him across the cutting. It was the event of
a second. Dangle seemed to jump, hang in the air momentarily, and

vanish, and after a moment's pause came a heart-rending smash.
Then two black heads running swiftly.

"Better get out," said Phipps to Mrs. Milton, who stood
fascinated in the doorway.



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